Megapolis: Doge's Palace - 02/28/2014

Edit 03/05: Assets for this quest are now on sale for the remaining duration.  If you want to continue with Quest #6: Carnival Costume or higher, now is a good time to do it while saving some Megabucks.  Other common assets that you could buy now for use with other projects are also available: Concrete Slabs, Insulation, Sling Hooks, Column, Sand, Piles, Glass, and Pipes to name a few.

The Venetian Carnival timed quest began during the day on 02/28/2014.  I recommend starting on this quest immediately as it nets two very profitable contracts!  Also, the first few quests only require you to spend (24,000 + 33,000) 57,000 coins which you can make up in less than a day by completing the new contracts awarded from your investment.

Quest #1: The Spirit of Italy
     - Start Building an Italian Cafe
     - Visit 5 Neighbors

     $ Reward: Flower Bushes x5 (use on Quest #4)

Quest #2: Masks Workshop
     - Build a Venetian Mask Shop
     - Collect 2,500 in Taxes

     $ Reward: Columns x5 (use on Quest #4)

Quest #3: Venetian Palace
     - Build the Foundation for Doge's Palace
     - House 2,000 Population

     $ Reward: Mirrors x10 (use on Quest #4)

Quest #4: Preparations for the Carnival
     - Finish Building Doge's Palace
     - Start the Preparations for the Carnival Contract

     $ Reward: 2 awesome contracts!!


For the cost of two cheap infrastructure buildings, you finish building Doge's Palace (not to be confused with the internet meme) without having to wait for any assets.  If you build the Carnival Costume Store, you get a third nice contract.  Let's take a look at those three contracts:

Preparations for the Carnival
Duration:  15 minutes
Cost:  2,300
Earn:  4,050
Exp:  10
Coins/Hour: 7000 (116.66 coins/minute)

Carnival Costume Shipment
Duration:  30 minutes
Cost:  3,100
Earn:  6,350
Exp:  20
Coins/Hour: 6500 (108.33 coins/minute)

Carnival Float Parade
Duration:  2 hours
Cost:  6,100
Earn:  12,500
Exp:  100
Coins/Hour: 3200 (53.33 coins/minute)

** I added all 10 contracts to the Doge's Palace wiki page on 02/28/14.

This is where I decided to stop for this timed quest.  The next portion requires 55 assets (55 Megabucks) and it does not give me access to a more desirable contract.  I also do not spend Megabucks on timed quests quite yet since I would rather save them for asset sales that benefit my trains at this time.

How to Spend your Megabucks

Good Investments

#1 Increase Neighbor Capacity

   The best way to invest your Megabucks is to increase the amount of neighbors that you can have.  If you think about it, most assets cost 1 Megabuck each.  If you buy a new neighbor and they send you an asset as a gift each day, then you will earn your investment back in only 5 days!  It is also important to constantly monitor your neighbors to make sure that they are active, but we will discuss that in another post.

#2 Assets on Sale
   Do you need more than 5 of an asset to finish a building with an amazing contract?  If that particular asset is currently on sale, you will end up getting 66.6% more of that asset if you buy it on sale!  One particular asset that I have bought many of on sale is the Signal Lamps.  You need 110 of them to get all 10 airplanes to "Courier" status (the highest level before you are spending too many assets to upgrade).  Not to mention, you need another 35 to upgrade your trains from Miami to St. Louis.  For every 15 that you would have bought 1:1, you would get 25 instead if they were on sale.

#3 Territory Expansions
   If you have multiple territories that could use expanding, try to buy the one that gives you the most space for the same price.

Bad Investments

#1 Buying Individual Assets
   This might be tempting if you only need a couple more assets to finish a project.  But patience is a virtue - and patience will save you some Megabucks for a project that may need them more.

#2 Speeding up Contracts or Buildings
   This is a complete waste of Megabucks without question.  Just wait - you have more hours than you will ever have Megabucks available.

#3 Buying Buildings
   If a building is available for purchase with coins or Megabucks, just wait and shell out the coins.  Megabucks are far more hard to come by than coins (especially late game).

Population Cap Increasing Buildings

In this post, we discuss the buildings that increase your population cap the most.  As of now, the #1 way to increase your population cap is by filling your 1x1 squares with Tic-Tac-Toe Parks.  They each increase your pop cap by 17,200 and cost 560,000.  So yea, they are expensive.  But when you are higher level, space is worth more than coins.

Population Buildings

Population Buildings

In this post, we discuss the buildings that increase your population the fastest.  The obvious choice here is the Gemini Hotel.  While it costs a lot of coins to buy, it will give you 80.56 population per hour per square.

A good low level building to increase population is the Bosphorus Cottage.  It only costs 5,000 coins, yields 120 pop/hour per square, and it gives you something to do every 15 minutes when you are low level and don't have much to do yet :)

Megapolis: Infrastructure Buildings

Update 06/04/14: Pet Dinosaur Shop, Westminster Abbey, Tower of Hercules, and other buildings were nerfed.  You can read about them in my post.



In this section, we will examine some of the highest coin yielding buildings that do not involve contracts.  The beauty of these buildings is that you can log in and collect at our leisure without the risk of a contract expiring.  Looking at the coin rate you earn per square occupied, infrastructure buildings are still going to give you less money per hour per square than most buildings that involve contracts.

The Table:

**Note: The [coins/hour] and [cRate/square] values assume that you are logging in and collecting your money from the building as soon as it is ready.

New table 06/04/14:

Old table before nerfs:

Long Term:

If you can afford them, Kingkey 101 is now the most profitable infrastructure building.  Released on 04/18/14, it has coin rate per square rate of 1181 which is almost triple that of the runner up (Changzhou).

If you're thinking "I don't log in every 4 hours, so I would prefer Changzhou which takes 8 hours to generate income.", I will show you why Kingkey is still the best.

I changed my table to see what Kingkey's rates would be if you took 8 hours to log in and collect.  The coin rate compared to Changzhou is still almost 50% more.

While this is good news, it makes me regret buying 24 Changzhou Modern Media Centers right after they were released which wasn't long before they introduced the Kingkey 101.


Outdated 04/18/14:
Currently, the very best infrastructure building is the Changzhou Modern Media Center.  The coinrate/square is 409.38 which blows every other infrastructure building out of the water.

Outdated:
If you log in every 4 hours, the best building to make money is the Westminster Abbey.  With a coin rate per hour per square of 175.7, it is almost as good as having Research Centers and continuously completing the Nanotubes contract.

If you log in every 9 hours, the best building for you is the House of Music.  Although it has a higher initial cost and a longer return of investment (ROI), you don't have to log in as often and per square you are still earning 170.4 coins per hour.

Short Term:

Outdated 06/04/14:
For the short term (quicker ROI, lower initial cost), the very best infrastructure building you can buy is the Pet Dinosaur Shop.  Sporting a hefty 161.7 coins per hour per square and a ROI of only 9.7 days, you will find yourself massing coins very quickly.

Contract Buildings that Take Up Space

Contracts are the most profitable way to use your city's space.  In general, the contracts that take the least amount of time will give you the most coins per hour.  There are some exceptions.

The downside to contracts is that they can expire.  After the contract completes, you have 1.5x contract duration to collect before it expires.

Example:  A contract takes 2 hours to complete, costs 5,000 coins, and rewards 10,000 coins.  You started it at 1:00pm and it finishes at 3:00pm.  You have until ~6:00pm to collect before it expires.  If it expires, you only get back half the cost of the contract.  In this example, you will only get 2,500 coins instead of 10,000.

Population Limited Contract Buildings

These buildings are the ones that are unlocked every 500,000 population that you acquire.  In my opinion, the best population limited contract building is the Nuclear Research Center.  The Radioisotope Drugs contract yields 405 coins per hour per hour per square.  This is an even better rate than most of the unique contract buildings aside from 3 on my list below.  I don't like to constrict my real-life with short contracts, so the top 3 that take 3 minutes, 5 minutes, and 60 minutes respectively are not ideal for me.

Best 3:
  #1 Nuclear Research Center (Radioisotope Drugs contract) [405 coins/hour/square]
  #2 Household Goods Facility (Electric Kettles contract) [260 coins/hour/square]
  #3 Household Goods Store (Kitchenware contract) [242 coins/hour/square]

Unique Contract Buildings

While they cost assets to complete,  the unique contract buildings generally provide a higher coin rate per square than all of the infrastructure buildings.  The contracts mentioned below are attainable by using a reasonable amount of assets.  i.e. you can upgrade the SQ City or Historical Institute castles more, but you would be just wasting your assets.  Yes, I built these buildings and I do use these contracts.  But had I done my research first, I would have rather invested my assets into my airport or my trains first!

Best 4:
  #1 Emergency Services Center (Cleaning Up the Aftermath contract) [680 coins/hour/square]
  #2 Conrad Miami Hotel (Organizing a Charity Event contract) [666.67+ coins/hour/square]
  #3 Power Engineering Institute (Solar Cells Upgrade contract) [533.33 coins/hour/square]
  #4 Hydrology Institute (Turbulence Moduling contract) [500 coins/hour/square]

Worst 3:
  #1 Washington Monument (Staging Holiday Events contract) [55.56 coins/hour/square]
  #2 SQ City (Meeting of the SQ City Board of Directors contract) [80+ coins/hour/square]
  #3 Historical Institute (Stratigraphic Research contract) [112.5 coins/hour/square]

Introduction

This blog is dedicated to information and comparative analysis about Megapolis - the Social Quantum game available on Facebook, iPhone, and Android devices.  I will compare different buildings & contracts to help you decide most efficient ways for you to earn coins and optimize your space.  I don't take into account "city beauty."  I am a numbers guy, and I will be the first to admit that my city isn't beautiful.  However, it is efficient.

The Unofficial Megapolis Wiki contains a great wealth of information and is the primary source of my data for each individual building & contract.  I encourage you to use their site and contribute as much as you can for the benefit of the Megapolis community.

Throughout my comparisons that involve spending in-game assets, you will see that I often use a variable called APM (Assets per Max Rate).  This is a variable that I created that gives us a quick side-by-side comparison by looking at only one number.  It takes into account the number of assets required for the building or contract and the rate of coins per minute or hour that you earn from your investment.

If you have a particular analysis that you want me to write up, please do not hesitate to leave a comment!

I play on the SQ network on my iPhone.  I am currently lvl 140 and I earn over 10 million coins per day playing casually.